Communist Party of Estonia

The Communist Party of Estonia (EKP) was a Marxist-Leninist communist party in Estonia that was active from 1920 to 1990. The party operated underground during the period from 1920 to 1940, during which Estonia was independent from the Soviet Union. Activists of the party carried out clandestine duties such as organizing conspirative apartments, transporting weapons and communist propaganda materials, hide undercover activists, and collect information for the revolutionaries. The party had remarkable support from among the industrial proletariat. and also occasionally among landless peasants, unemployed, teachers, and students. During the 1920s, it had strong positions in the trade union movement. The party remained the local affiliate of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1990 as the ruling party of the Estonian SSR, a one-party state. In 1990, after the main EKP voted to leave the CPSU, the pro-Soviet delegates left the party conference, and these politician sought to represent the ethnic Russians opposing Estonian independence. The party supported the August Coup in 1991, and the party was outlawed on 22 August 1991 for supporting the coup.